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During the Gengzi Revolution, Beijing and Tianjin fell, causing chaos, transportation between the north and the south was interrupted, and a large number of Beijing officials and refugees were in danger. With the support of Li Hongzhang, Shanghai gentry and merchants successively established the China Relief Society and the Southeast Emergency Relief Society to initiate, organize and implement large-scale rescues. The large-scale rescue effort initiated by Shanghai gentry and merchants and promoted by officials from all provinces during the emergency period was rare in history for its large scale, extensive mobilization, number of rescued objects, and remarkable results. The occurrence of the Gengzi Revolution and the Gengzi Rescue were not only closely related to the North-South differences in Sino-foreign trade in the 19th century, but were essentially a rescue operation based on hometown friendship. Li Hongzhang called it "started by the mutual aid of relatives and friends of each family, and expanded to the same province and the same flag. The "universal aid of officials and people" brought to the surface the previously hidden awareness of "provincial citizenship" and became the prelude to the rise of "provincial boundary" awareness during the New Deal period in the late Qing Dynasty. It was the "provincial boundary" awareness that profoundly affected the social and political situation during the New Deal period, and ultimately changed history.